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Memories of the Green Bay Packers at 92 (and in the Super Bowl); Jerry Bonk (dad) at 80; Richard Bonk (bro) at 46; and other cold January news... |
| Monday, January 24, 2011 |
Some January news (it is PACKED):
It is January 25th, 2011. I am about to post about news related to my Web course and videos for teaching online and then I remember that the clock has just pushed past midnight. And now it is my brother Richard's 46th birthday. More importantly, it would have been my father's birthday as well. He would have been 80. Dad (Jerry Bonk; also Jerome Anthony Bonk or JABO) died of pancreatic cancer back on July 27, 1995 (the same day that the Korean War Memorial was dedicated in DC....my father fought in the Korean War and my son Alex is from Korea and many of my closest friends are from Korea)...That was 1995, but it seems like just ysterday.
I did not cry much as his funeral as I had to give the eulogy. It was a poem about his life and his grandkids. But I am crying now as I did not realize that it was his 80th bday until a minute ago. A moment of sadness.
My father was a caring, brilliant, and funny person. He worked very hard to raise 5 children. More specifically, he worked for AT&T in Milwaukee his entire life as an engineer and later an accountant (my former profession). He went to night school at Marquette to get his degree. He was happy when I decided to leave West Virginia University in the summer of 1992 and come to Indiana University since the School of Education (where I now work) had significant funding from AT&T to be a demonstration site for technology in education. The building opened up (came on-line) when I arrived in late August 1992. It is still a rather fascinating place in which to work. Now more than 18 years later, it has had some remodeling during the past year to make it even better. It is a fun place to work.
Back to my father...What my dad (Jerry) really liked was football; and the Green Bay Packers were his team (and mine). I am sure he loved the outcome of the Packer-Bears game yesterday (21-14 Packers) from wherever vantagepoint he had. We watched the Pack win the first two Super Bowls in the front room of our house back when I was quite young. And a year or two later, he took me to a game at Milwaukee County Stadium (which was a few miles from our house) in the freezing cold; this was decades ago when they still played in Milwaukee and had Carole Dale at wide receiver, Ray Nitschke (#66) at middle linebacker, and the fantabulous Bart Starr at quarterback. There is no way I could go at such temperatures today--I shake in the cold too much.
Getting tickets was a rarity (it still is, by the way). When we could not get tickets and they were playing in town, my dad (i.e., Jerry) would take me to a pub a few miles west of our house in West Allis, Wisconsin (head down Cleveland Avenue a few blocks and then take a left on National Avenue a few miles over to neighboring New Berlin (where my great uncles once had farms side-by-side). This was way out actually and near the city of Waukesha. It was high up on a hill so that they would get reception). My best friend in the old neighborhood, Mark Perry, read this blog post and just sent me an email. He thinks it was Prospect Hill Tap or Pub and I think he is right (Google says it is at 19745 W National Ave; still there perhaps after all these years and a YouTube video I found has people playing acordians there just like my father would have). Not sure if that is from the pub but you will get a sense of the place. (Thanks Mark...at least your brain cells are still intact unlike mine!)
I remember one game sipping some 7-up or sprite at that pub and a rookie named Travis Williams from Arizona State returned the opening kick-off 87 yards for a touchdown. After three more scores by Green Bay, he repeated the feat again (after the Cleveland Browns had scored) wtih an 85 yard run for a TD. It was 35-7 at the end of the first quarter on way to a 55 to 7 Packer victory. I think that was the first time it ever happened and I was able to see it sitting there in the pub. This was November 12, 1967. Two months and 2 days later, the Packers would beat the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl II 33-14 (January 14, 1968). My father was extremely happy with each score.
A few years later, my dad would install his dream...a huge residential TV antenna tower (in cement) so that we could pick up Packer games from across Lake Michigan. This was well before cable TV and now Direct TV. I think my dad would spend a hour or so positioning the antenna in a certain direction to pick up the game. And when he did get it in, it was often quite fuzzy, but we did not mind and would watch it. No high-dev (HD) TV stations back then. To get these games, I think dad would try to get Muskegon, Michigan, though sometimes it was Traverse City (Note: back then the games in Milwaukee were blacked out...they were definitely not on Chicago TV unless it was Da Bears in town). This was such a super structure, my friends and I used to climb on it. I am surprised none of us ever fell off and died. But it was useful for avoiding getting tagged or tackled.
Well, nomatter that silly tower (which by the way, no longer exists), dad would definitely have watched the big game this past Sunday. And he would not have been alone despite the weather outside...my best friends, brothers-in-law, nephews, nieces, and I would have been there to watch it with him. Many of them looked up to him as their surrogate father. Undoubtedly, he would have had a smoke and a beer or two or three or four near the end of it. But he would have been happy and so would all of his kids. A game of pool after? Of course!
It was a quite memorable game. Let's hope that they can beat Pittsburgh in the Super Bowl in two weeks. Happy birthday Jerry Bonk. It is not everyday one turns 80 and your team is headed to the Super Bowl.
And my brother Richard (Bonk) has been texting me all day yesterday and today so I know he is happy too. Happy 46th bday Richard. Perhaps you can once again find some Super Bowl tickets, but this time take me richie Rich.
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...now I should post what I intended to post tonight and go to bed. Ok...my online R685 course this spring on my World is Open book and the Web 2.0 is now 51 pages. My goodness. Everything is a hotlink. Check it out. I mean at 51 pages, can pretty much count on everything to be there. At the same time, in 15-20 months, it will be long past its prime.
There is a tad more news...my department (Instructional Systems Technology) published a news story on my 27 videos on teaching online (e.g., planning for an online coure, using blogging and wikis, giving feedback, handling plagiarism, creating community, etc.). Here it is: IST News, Announcing the V-PORTAL…”Video Primers in an Online Repository for e-Teaching and Learning." IST professor’s Book, School of Education, Indiana University, January 21, 2011.
In addition, my dean's office has decided on a farily liberal Creative Commons license for them…allowing corporate people or anyone to use pieces and remix them (and even sell them). These videos are available under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0.
Remember you can find these videos in a portal from the Instructional Consulting office at IU. They also have links to additional resources, a color PDF copy of the PowerPoint slides used in each of the 27 shows. (Firefox preferred and will play faster).
For faster access, watch them in my TravelEdMan YouTube Channel (use any browser).
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p.s. Happy bday dad and Richard. Despite the cold, it is a wonderful week in which to have a birthday. Go Pack. (Yes, that Brett Farve Vikings jersey is still here but I am not wearing it....not this month or the next one anyway.)
p.s.s. Great quote today from my Dalai Lama daily calendar, "We need to embrace the oneness of humanity and show concern for everyone--not just my family or my country or my continent." (so I guess that means I can like the Indy Colts as well as the Packers...and perhaps even the Vikings when Farve is playing.) |
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Global Learn Call for Papers Extended to Jan 31, Upcoming Global TIME (virtual in Feb), & E-Learn in October in Hawaii |
| Wednesday, January 12, 2011 |
Good news. Global Learn Call for Papers was just extended from today to January 31st. Global Learn: Global Conference on Learning and Technology will be held in Melbourne March 28-April 1, 2011. It will be in the Sebel Albert Park, Melbourne. Looks like a nice hotel with pretty good rates ($133/night + tax USD and $153/night + tax Aussie dollars).
The GL 2010 conference was in Penang, Malaysia last May. It was the best conference I have attended in many years...it did not hurt to be held along the beach and have luscious views at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and each evening. So many great friends and colleagues were there. And there were superb keynote and invited speakers each day. Unlike most conferences I go to, I attended sessions throughout the day...every day (despite sitting at the beach most nights till 3 am sipping beers and listening to music...often with the likes of Tom Reynolds (from National U in San Diego who was on Fulbright in Columbia), Paul Kim (Stanford), Grace Lin, Curtis Ho, and many others (from the U of Hawaii--the largest conference contingent), Ke Zhang (Wayne State who was on sabbatical in China), Okhwa Lee (from Chungbuk National in Korea), Siew-Mee and Greg Barton (from Deakin and Monash Uni's in Melbourne), Marc Curcher (Dubai Men's College), Dorit Maor (Murdock U in Perth...she was my former visiting scholar), Katsuaki Suzuki (Japan), Thanomporn (Toh) Laohajaratsang (from Chang Mai U in Thailand...another former visiting scholar of mine from this past fall here at IU), Daniel Tan (NTU in Singapore) as well as his assistant Shirlene Tang, Abtar Kaur and Zoraini Wati Abas (from the Open U of Malaysia in KL...Zoraini really was the force that enabled this conference to happen), Teh Chiew Lan (from Penang, Malaysia), Elaine Khoo (from the U of Waikato in New Zealand), John Hedberg (from Macquarie Uni in Sydney), Insung Jung (International Christian U in Tokyo) and her husband Illja Rha (from Seoul National University in Korea...and many of his students), Mona Masood (former student of mine now in Malaysia), Joe Luca (Edith Cowan in Perth), Yayoi Anzai (Japan), Jake Enfield (good ol' IU), and many others...apologies to those not mentioned here or that I forgot). You can see that people came from all over the world. My IST doctoral student, Jake Enfield, went and presented 3 times and was a major star.
As you can see, I highly recommend it. What an event! New conferences are places where you can make the most impact and extend your social network well beyond anything you might imagine. Of course, Dr. Gary Marks and his team from AACE also made Global Learn in Penang last year in May a great conference experience. They have much experience with running such conferences and it showed. Love the conference bag by the way! I still use it. I get 20-30 such bags a year and only keep 1 at most and this was the one for 2010. Lovely! I also picked up two tailored suits that were shipped home--one blue and one white. The white one I had made 1 hour before departing...best suit I have...now that was close. Greg and Siew-Mee Barton must have bought 2-3 each and took all their friends to the same shop.
So these are the reasons why I highly recommend Global Learn this year in Melbourne. Excellent presentations, great views, lovely conference bags, cheap shopping (at least in Penang), plenty of night life, wonderful breakfast and lunch conversations, constant interactions and rest when needed, etc. And you meet international experts (and stars) in e-learning and technology in training and education. The keynote and invited speakers for GL 2011 should be posted in the next few days (I know since I am on the organizing committee and help found the conference along with many others). Perhaps I will see a couple of you there! For future reference, this conference will be held each year in Asia or the Pacific Rim (from Turkey and the UAE in the west to Taiwan and Japan in the east and from India, Australia, and New Zealand in the south to Russia and Mongolia in north). If you live in that huge region of the world, perhaps you can nominate one of your countries in the future and then help out.
Part of the Mission statement is: "The mission of Global Learn Asia Pacific conferences and events is to further the advancement and innovation in learning and technology. As the educational world becomes increasingly global, new ways to explore, learn, and share knowledge are needed. Global Learn serves as a means to connect and engage creative educators, researchers, consultants, training managers, policy makers, curriculum developers, entrepreneurs, and others in the topics and fields in which they are passionate." Read more about the mission and audience as well as the extremely current and cool list of conference topics. Are you an educational entrepreneur, head of a government agency, filmographer, educational consultant, instructional design specialist, flexible learning consultant, educational philanthropist, training director, e-learning director or evaluator, etc.? If so, I hope to see you at Global Learn in Melbourne. Again see the mission statement for additional potential audiences for this special conference.
I should point out that Global Learn is an AACE (the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE) conference just like Ed Media (June 27-July 1, 2011 in Portugal), SITE (March 7-11, 2011 in Nashville), E-Learn, and now Global TIME (to be held next month for the first time—virtually). See all AACE conferences.
By the way, the International E-Learn Conference for 2011 is in Hawaii in October (Oct. 17-21) and the call for papers is due April 22. I am chair of the E-Learn exec committee one last year and happy to help you out in any way I can. The conference hotel is beautiful and looks over Waikiki beach (assuming it is the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel again). I have attended Ed Media twice there (2003 and 2009) and E-Learn once (2006) and loved each one. Though in 2006 we experienced 2 early morning monster earthquakes around 6.7 and 6.0 (7 minutes later) on the Richter scale and hotel swayed a bit and we had to present in the dark that day...but the food was very cheap and plentiful for the next 2 days. Smile.
Again, I hope to see many of you in Melbourne...and if you are going, drop me a note. My friends Dr. Siew-Mee Barton (from Deakin University) and Dr. Greg Barton (from Monash University) are helping with the conference and will try to arrange a wine tasting social before or after the conference. And the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Melbourne in late March 2011 will be next to the conference hotel just prior to the start of Global Learn, so get there early if you can (March 24-27th next to Albert Park). Vroom...vroom.
You have till January 31st, 2011 to get your papers in! Just do it. Here are the forms for the final call for papers! |
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